Ingersoll

masting business so far as America was con-
cerned, but he was supported by the Connecticut
Assembly which sought to protect Ingersoll's in-
terests by securing a separate vice-admiralty
court for the colony.

In the fall of 1764 Ingersoll returned to Eng-
land to secure another contract but found the
Wentworth group in such high influence that he
no longer pressed the project. Soon after his ar-
rival he received notice from the Connecticut
government that he had been appointed for a sec-
ond time their London agent. He was instructed
to oppose the stamp tax bill which Grenville had
notified the colonies he was planning to bring
into Parliament Ingersoll thereupon joined with
the other colonial agents in London to prevail
upon the minister not to push the plan. The
arguments of the latter apparently convinced In-
gersoll of the justice of the measure and he set to
work to influence the shaping of the bill at the
Treasury office in such a way as to eliminate
whatever features were especially disadvanta-
geous to the colonials. When the bill passed Par-
liament Grenville decided to appoint prominent
Americans, rather than Englishmen, as distrib-
utors or stamp masters for the different colonies,
and Ingersoll was offered the post for Connecti-
cut It is said that he accepted on the advice of
Franklin, but instead of being commended by the
people of that colony for his services in their be-
half and especially for assuming the responsi-
bility of administering an office which in the
hands of a stranger might become oppressive, he
soon found himself upon his return to Connecti-
cut, early in August 1765, the object of a furious
attack ia the papers of New Haven and Hart-
ford. He stoutly maintained, however, that he
would resign his commission only when called
•upon to do so by the Connecticut Assembly. In
September Governor Fitch issued a call for the
legislature to meet on the iQth of the month. At-
tempting to go to the Assembly, Ingersoll was
met by a band of men from the eastern counties
who escorted him to Wethersfield where after a
prolonged struggle he was forced to write out
a resignation. From Wethersfield the cavalcade,
swollen now to about a thousand horsemen, pro-
ceeded to Hartford, where in the presence of the
members of the Assembly gathered In "front of
the State House, Ingersoll read his resignation.
When later a proclamation had been issued
against the rioters by the Governor, Ingersoll
felt impelled to recall the resignation, but in the
fallowing January, in the face of renewed threats
from the men of the eastern counties, he finally
TOtit bdfore a justice of the peace and took an
oath never to exercise his office.

Ingersoll

After this Ingersoll retired to the post of local
justice of the peace in New Haven, although in
1766 he was appointed a member of the New
York-New Jersey boundary commission. During
this period most of his efforts were given to his
law practice and it is interesting to note that in
1766 he defended Benedict Arnold when he was
indicted for whipping the informer Boles who
sought to disclose Arnold's smuggling activities.
He also acted as the agent for Lord Stirling's
settlement project on the Penobscot River. Mean-
while he was seeking preferment at the court
and in 1768 he was rewarded with the appoint-
ment as judge of one of the four new courts of
vice-admiralty created for America in that year,
with Philadelphia as the permanent seat. In the
spring of 1771 he moved to Philadelphia where
he presided over his court without serious mo-
lestation until the outbreak of hostilities between
the mother country and her colonies. For the
first two years of the war he lived in seclusion
in Philadelphia. With the approach of General
Howe, however, the patriotic party took active
measures against the Loyalists, and Ingersoll
was called upon to leave Philadelphia and return
to New Haven. He went there on parole in Sep-
tember 1777 and remained until his death in Au-
gust 1781. He was twice married: in 1743 to
Hannah Whiting by whom he had a son, Jared
[#.#.], and in 1780 to Hannah Miles, the widow
of Enos Ailing.

[F. B. Dexter, Biog. Sketches of the Grads. of Yale
Coll., 1701-45 (1885), and Jared Ingersoll Papers
(1918), reprinted from the Papers of the New Haven
Colony Hist. Soc., vol. IX (1918); Mr. Ingersol's Let-
ters Relating to the Stamp Act (1766) ; L. H. Gipson,
Jared Ingersoll: A Study of Am. Loyalism in Relation
to British Colonial Government (1920) ; L. D. A very, A
Geneal. of the Ingersoll Family in America (1926).]

L.H.G.

INGERSOLL, JARED (Oct. 27, i749-0ct.
31, 1822), lawyer, was born at New Haven,
"Conn. His parents were Jared Ingersoll [#.#,],
'Loyalist, and Hannah (Whiting) Ingersoll He
graduated from Yale College in 1766, and upon
his father's removal to Philadelphia to organize
a vice-admiralty court, he was left in charge of
the elder Ingersoll's affairs. Later he removed to
Philadelphia, where he studied law. His father,
in the midst of the controversies preceding the
Revolution, advised him to go to England for
the further study of law, and on July 16, 1773,
he was admitted to the Middle Temple. During
these years he abandoned the Loyalist views of
his father. He went to the Continent in 1776,
and two years later he secured passage from
Paris to America. Soon after his return to Phil-
adelphia, on Dec. 6, 1781, he married Elizabeth,
daughter of Col. Charles Pettit. He had been

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